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Penny Halliwell
Penelope' Halliwell' (née Johnson; also known as Penny; June 23, 1937—March 5, 1998) was a witch, daughter of Gordon Johnson and P. Baxter and adoptive sister of Gordon II. She had a daughter named Patty at the age of twelve, the father being Allen Halliwell, seven years her senior, whom she later married. An accomplished witch, potion maker and high priestess, Allen's death at Nigel's hand led to her becoming a fierce and determined combatant against the Underworld. Following Allen's death, Penny remarried and divorced three times, and was engaged a further three. To prevent herself from becoming engaged again, she hexed her ring. Without focussing on men, Penny became the matriarch of the Halliwell family. She advised Patty to give up her part-whitelighter baby, and cared for her three eldest granddaughters after Patty's death. Having bound their powers during their childhood, she raised them as mortals. After finally deciding to strip their powers permanently, she suffered a heart attack and died in 1998. She continued to guide and assist her granddaughters from the Beyond. As a spirit, Penny helped the Charmed Ones vanquish Abraxas and retrieve the Halliwell Book of Shadows, performed Piper and Leo Wyatt's handfasting, made the potion that killed Snow White's stepmother, vanquished Armand, and helped in the battle against Neena in the Upper Regions. Biography Early life Penny Johnson was born on June 23, 1937 to Gordon Johnson and P. Baxter in a hotel in Boston, Massachussetts in a breech birth. When Penny was six years-old at the very youngest, her parents adopted a mortal boy, whom they named Gordon Johnson II. Penny possessed the power of telekinesis and considered being a witch to be a very important part of her life.Penny: That my being a witch was such an important part of my life and what it meant to me and what it might mean to you someday. (Cheaper by the Coven) She was skilled with potions and invented a substantial number of them, which she recorded in the family's Book of Shadows.Penny: Honey, I wrote the book. All the good potions anyway. (Happily Ever After) Starting a family Daughter and relationship with Armand As a child, Penny met Allen Halliwell, with whom she had a daughter named Patty at the age of twelve on April 5, 1950, when Allen was about twenty. Despite her love for Allen, she fell in love with Armand, who preyed on her feelings for him in order to use the power of the Warren matriarchs to resurrect himself. He did not anticipate falling in love with her himself. At Patty's wiccaning, Armand attacked,Penny: The last time he attacked was during your mother's wiccaning. (Necromancing the Stone) but Penny successfully banished him back to the Spirit Realm. Penny's father died in 1953, when she was fifteen or sixteen. First marriage and university Penny married Allen, whose influence led her to the hippie subculture. This resulted in her becoming a pacifist and refusing to vanquish demons.Witchstock Penny attended university and was part of a sorority. She was close to one of her sorority sisters, Gail Altman. The two became best friends and Penny, at some point, disclosed to Gail that she was a witch. Gail herself was a witch practitioner.Gail Altman: I still practice the craft myself every now and then. I don't have any real powers, mostly I just play around with it. (How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans) Penny also become close friends with Robin. Penny organised a magical be-in for witches and whitelighters on January 13, 1967 at her parents' house, in which she and her family were now living. Penny's plan was to tap into the spiritual nexus beneath the house and "ride the magic wave". During the event, Robin killed Allen, causing Penny to "end" both her and her peace-loving days. Time was later rewritten by Paige Matthews, who had been transported from the future due to a return-to-owner spell that Penny had cast on a pair of go-go boots. Piper and Phoebe Halliwell later followed. That night, Penny found Allen dead, killed by Nigel who was in league with Robin. Penny decided to make a binding potion, feeling that her magic had failed her, but changed her mind and vanquished Nigel after Piper, Phoebe and Paige revealed their true identities as her granddaughters. Penny proceeded to reverse her return-to-owner spells. After Piper, Phoebe and Paige's departure, Penny cast a forgetting spell to remove her memories of them and their time travel. However, she retained her new perspective on violence, which was that it was acceptable if done to protect others. Life after Allen's death Over the course of her life, Penny remarried three times, although Phoebe told Cole that she was married six times.Phoebe: She was married with that thing six times. (Lost and Bound) She had remarried at least once by 1975.In That '70s Episode, it is acknowledged that Penny has already had several husbands, meaning that she had married at least one more man by 1975. She believed that she had never found true love and that she had never had much luck with men. After Allen's death, she had predicted that she would hate men for the rest of her life as none of them could compare to him.Penny: No one will ever compare to him. I'll probably end up hating men for the rest of my life. (Witchstock) Her brother died in 1970 and her mother in December, 1973. This left her as the matriarch of the Warren family. Penny believed that Patty's marriage to Victor Bennet was doomed from the start and refused to allow her to take his surname.Penny: You know it was doomed from the start. You never even took his last name. / Patty: You wouldn't let me. (That '70s Episode) Whilst Victor knew that Penny and Patty were witches, he knew only that there was a chance that his daughters would be as well.Prue: So how long have you known? About us, our powers. How long? / Victor: I knew there was a possibility. That's why I came back, to find out. It must of happened when your grandmother died, right? (Thank You For Not Morphing) Penny lived away from the Manor,Patty: Could that thing take us to her? I mean, your Grams. Because it'd be faster than driving. (Forever Charmed) but moved back in early 1975 to help Patty care for her daughters, Prue and Piper, after Victor left them. She taught them spells and potions.That '70s Episode In March, 1975, Penny saw the time-travelling Prue, Piper and Phoebe and believed them to be warlocks trying to kidnap her granddaughters. She eventually learnt the truth of their identities as Patty's daughters and the Charmed Ones, although she remained sceptical and quizzed them about her and the Warrens. She also asked for information on the future to use for her personal gain and deduced that she had died by 1999. She created a spell to return the sisters and sent them back before unblessing Nicholas's ring that granted him immunity from the sisters' powers. Aware of Nicholas's plan to steal the sisters' powers, Penny bound their powers after Phoebe was born on November 2. Victor later returned to the family.Thank You For Not Morphing In the summer of 1978, Patty was killed by the Water Demon.P3 H2O After Patty's funeral, Penny took them to a beach to try to cheer them up.Prue: Okay, well, you were too young to remember, but this is where Grams brought us after Mom's funeral to try and cheer us up. (Death Takes a Halliwell) At some point after the Nicholas ordeal, Penny forgot about the sisters' visit from the future.Forever Charmed Caring for Prue, Piper and Phoebe With Patty dead, Penny and Victor raised the sisters. The two frequently argued about whose technique was the best, with Penny wanting them to find out that they were witches when they grew up but Victor not wanting them to. She had to protect the girls from a number of demons who targeted them as they were growing up.Penny: I know I'm a ball-buster but it kept me alive to protect my girls from all the demons that came after them as kids. (Witchstock) When the sisters were children, Penny hosted a coven at the house, of which her best friend Gail was a member. The meetings were under the premise of being a bridge club and were kept secret from the girls.How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans On Piper's birthday, a demon attacked and was vanquished by Penny. This resulted in an argument between Penny and Victor that ended with Victor walking out''Sympathy for the Demon'' and moving to New York.Something Wicca This Way Comes Penny cut Victor out of all of the family photographs afterwards. Effectively being a single parent, Penny occasionally used spells on her granddaughters to keep them in line.Penny: Now, this contains spells I used to use on the girls when they were younger. / Victor: You used spells on my daughters? / Penny: Oh, every now and then. Hey, you try raising three girls by yourself, keeping them in line. How else was I going to stop them from misbehaving? (Cheaper by the Coven) At some point, Penny once again met Piper from the future, along with Leo and, from the past, Patty, causing her to faint. Upon relearning that the sisters would become the Charmed Ones, she joined them on their mission to expel the Hollow and recreated the Power of Three with Piper and Patty to travel to the future, where they were successful in their plan. After the Triad were defeated, Coop returned Penny to her correct place in time with no memory of her foray into the future. When Prue was eighteen, Penny found out that she had been attacked by her boyfriend. She flew into a rage and, soon after, the boy disappeared. Piper would later wonder if Penny had caused him to leave.Piper: And Grams went crazy when she found out. Come to think of it, that guy disappeared not too long after that. You don't suppose Grams...? (Be Careful What You Witch For) Some years later, Prue ran a red light with Phoebe in the car and was hit by another car, meaning that Phoebe spent a week in hospital. Penny made Prue look after Piper and Phoebe and forbade her from going east to become a photojournalist,Phoebe: But she was hardest on Prue. She kind of made Prue take care of us. She didn't let Prue go away to school. She wanted to go back east to be a photojournalist. / Piper: But Grams knew that we were going to become witches and she wasn't gonna let anything jeopardise that. (Murphy's Luck) meaning that she instead went to Gold State University, from which she graduated with honours. At some point, Penny became aware that her granddaughters would become the Charmed Ones and told Gail.Gail: Your Grams told me everything, including what you'd become when she died: the Charmed Ones. (How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans) Death Prue and Piper moved to North Beach whilst Phoebe attended school. However, Penny fell ill with heart problems in 1997 and the two moved back in to look after her. Piper took a job at a bank so as to help pay for the house and to afford Penny's hospital bills, although Penny believed that she was wasting her talents. Upon returning from the hospital after a stay there, Prue announced that she was moving in with Roger. By this point, Penny had made it her mission to bring the girls together in anticipation of their destiny, believing that the only other option was to bind their powers, something that Patty disagreed with. On March 5, 1998, Penny gave up on attempting to bring the girls together as Prue was getting married and Phoebe was poorly behaved and at odds with Prue. She knew that she would soon die and did not believe that the sisters were ready for their destiny. She brewed a binding potion that she planned to administer to the sisters despite Patty's protestations, but had a heart attack and died after falling down the stairs. She had locked the attic door and hidden the Halliwell Book of Shadows in a chest.Pre-Witched Afterlife Assisting the sisters Penny watched over the sisters after they regained their powers, although they were unable to see her. As a way of helping out, she would turn the pages of the Book of Shadows to direct them to useful spells or necessary information.Witch Trial Instances of the book's pages turning include flipping to the safety spell to vanquish the shapeshifters''I've Got You Under My Skin'' and the Truth Spell to help Prue with Andy Trudeau.The Truth is Out There... and It Hurts On the sisters' first anniversary, Penny was able to repeatedly say "the Power of Three" to them to help them work out how to defeat Abraxas. After they achieved this, Penny appeared to them in the attic and wished them a happy anniversary, telling them that it was her who turned the pages of the book. Piper's wedding Penny was aware of Piper and Leo's plan to wed and of Phoebe's misgivings. She appeared to Phoebe and talked them through, bringing her around to the idea of a handfasting. During the eclipse, Penny returned to act as high priestess for Piper and Leo's wedding, but Leo was forcibly orbed away.Magic Hour On the day of Piper and Leo's second attempt at a handfasting, Penny was permitted by the Elders to assist in its preparation and act as high priestess. She left after Prue and T.J. crashed the wedding and was sent back by the Elders that night to fetch Patty. With only five minutes before the two ghosts had to return, the wedding went ahead.Just Harried The Charmed Ones reconstituted After Prue's death, Penny and Patty tried to help her through her situation. She visited Piper in Prue's place when she attempted to summon her sister, telling her that she was forbidden from seeing Prue for some time. Piper summoned her again after learning that the Source of All Evil believed that the Charmed Ones could be reconstituted, leading Penny and Patty to tell them about Paige.Charmed Again, Part 1 In 2002, Penny was conjured by Piper, who inadvertently tapped into her unborn child's powers to provide her with advice on her pregnancy. She met Paige for the first time and attempted to form a relationship with her. She also assisted in combating a witch who used fairy tales and their props against the sisters. Penny was eaten by the Big Bad Wolf but escaped thanks to Piper. Before leaving, she told Piper that she did not need her advice.Happily Ever After A growing family After Piper's child was born, Penny was summoned to perform the wiccaning. Whilst initially enthusiastic, she was displeased with Piper having had a son. She once again banished Armand in order to keep him from attacking at the wiccaning, after which she decided that she could not go through with the ceremony. Armand kidnapped her and controlled her to summon the matriarchs to resurrect the two of them, but Paige's Truth Spell caused her to instead vanquish Armand permanently. Realising how her bitterness towards men had affected both herself and her family, she agreed to go through with the wiccaning, after which she returned to the Beyond.Necromancing the Stone In 2004, Phoebe summoned Penny after Paige vanished upon putting on a pair of her boots. Penny told them that she had been taken back to 1967 and directed them towards other items of clothing that could take them to her. Meanwhile, Penny, Leo and Chris Perry - to whom Penny took an initial dislike - combated the Slime. She transformed into a hippie for a time due to Paige's altering of the timeline and was eaten by the Slime. However, she emerged unharmed and returned to normal upon its vanquish. Before leaving, she gave Chris her approval and yelled at Phoebe and Paige for moving out of the Manor and giving them her blessing.Witchstock After Chris Halliwell was born, Penny was summoned by Phoebe and Paige to convince Piper to have Chris wiccaned. She had to deal with a demon that tried to kidnap Wyatt whilst the sisters were incapacitated by her sibling rivalry spell intended to help Wyatt and Chris. Without the sisters and not trusting Leo, Penny summoned Patty to help her and Victor decide what to do. She left after Patty pointed out that she and Victor were their parents. She returned once the situation was resolved and performed the wiccaning.Cheaper by the Coven Further assistance Following the sisters' supposed deaths, Paige conjured Penny for advice upon finding that she had no life. She advised her to go out and try the world on for size. She reappeared later to stop Piper and Phoebe from admonishing her for answering her charge's call.Still Charmed and Kicking Penny visited Piper's new restaurant to bless it and met more of her great-grandchildren, nicknaming Phoebe's daughter "P.J.".Unnatural Resources Penny and Patty greeted Paige and Kyle Brody when they arrived in the Beyond.Last Witch Effort She and the other Warrens fought to defend the Upper Regions from Neena and her demonic army, joining with them to bind Neena's powers. Afterwards, Paige asked about Prue's absence, prompting Penny to lie and claim that she had been reincarnated.The Charmed Offensive Piper, Phoebe and Paige summoned Penny and Patty to learn what was happening with Prue, who had become the All. She blamed Leo for Prue absorbing the Empyreal Sword.Haste Makes Wasteland Physical description Personality and traits Magical powers and skills Relationships Allen Halliwell Patty Halliwell Armand Granddaughters Behind the scenes *Penny was played by Jennifer Rhodes. A younger version of the character was played by Kara Zediker in Witchstock. Appearances Notes and references Category:Witches Category:1998 deaths Category:Females Category:Halliwell family Category:1930s births Category:Johnson family Category:Death by heart attack Category:Penelope Halliwell's coven